The West Would not Look Clean If CO2 had a Colour

Questioner: Good evening, Acharya Ji. My first question is: why is it that we are not taught about basic cleanliness in our homes and in our schools? I observed that people over here put the dirt in the designated areas, but back home they throw it everywhere. However, both are the same — both are Indians. So, there we have Indians, and here we are the same. So why is that?

Acharya Prashant: As far as I can see, there is no deep reason behind that. As you rightly said, the person is the same. And if the person is the same and has started behaving differently, then obviously the change is not coming from within, right?

The person is the same means the insides are the same. It's a matter of the environment. And when it's the environment that functions upon you, words like understanding or light or realization or love or care do not hold much relevance. It's not as if Indians over here, or the general population over here, is internally cleaner or more illuminated, and that's why you find external cleanliness.

It's about the rules, regulations, the fear, the greed, the enforcement, the execution, the penalties, the incentives, the disincentives — what you see around yourself and how it influences you. Which also means that if the person who is here happens to go back home, he probably might find his old habits returning over a matter of time — because the person was anyway the same.

It's a thing about the time, the place, the situation, and how the law operates there, and how the whole environment there is. Now, why is the environment different? Why is the general code of conduct different? Again, the reason has to do with — not something that is subtle or internal or heartily — but with factors that are very economic and material.

When you are hungry and dispossessed, then you first want to take care of the more mundane needs of life, right? Only after you have gained freedom from the fundamental material, physical concerns of life, that you start looking at the higher aspects. Not that cleanliness is a very high aspect of the business of living, but it is still something that one does not primarily concern oneself with if one is running on an empty stomach.

Consider this: there aren't too many developed — or let's keep the word “developed” aside — rich countries in the world that you will find unclean. And there aren't too many poor countries in the world that you would find clean.

So I see this not just as a coincidence, but actually as a causation. You do not want to take care of other things when the mind is battling things like having a roof over the head and something to put on the table for dinner. Then you don't want to take care of these things. To take the argument further — even within India — you do have places, societies, gated communities, as clean as probably anything you would find in the First World.

You have places, small areas in Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon — when you are there, and if you're not told, it would be difficult for you to figure out whether you are in a developing country or in a First World country. In all aspects of living and prosperity, that place would rival not just Dubai but Europe, the US, any place.

It's got to do with money. It's got to do with whether you have gained freedom from the very basic needs of life — the ones that are at the bottom of the pyramid in the Maslovian hierarchy.

Getting it?

Now, one could go deeper into it and ask: well, why is it then that some places are richer and others are not? If cleanliness is a function of economic growth — not that economic growth is the one and only driver of cleanliness and public hygiene — but if there happens to be a great degree of causal relationship, then what is it that drives prosperity in the first place?

That could be a question we could ask. And that question has several answers — because what drives prosperity in Bangalore is not what drives it in Dubai, and what drives it in Switzerland is not what drives it in California. And all of these places would count as prosperous, but the causal factors are quite different.

So, our genes are not to be blamed for it. We keep saying, you know, "Indians — dirty people," that thing. No, it's not about that.

Have you seen — when you are very hungry, when you are very, very hungry — famished as they say, for whatever reason it happens, or you have deliberately kept yourself hungry, let's say you have been fasting since 16, 20, or 30 hours — how you rampage on food when it comes to you? At least some of us. And if you have not done it yourself or you don't want to admit that you have done it yourself — have you seen others do it?

Yeah?

It doesn't matter to you that you are splattering it all over, and what it's doing to your shirt, to your mouth, to your moustache, to your beard. Do you mind it? No. What happens to etiquette? What happens to hygiene? That's it — out of the window, sir. I'm hungry.

Seen how kids behave? Because that's their most urgent need. Seen how they eat? That's how we are. If you are hungry, then you do not care about other things in life, because we are first of all emergents from the jungle. A large part of us is animalistic. This body — the entirety of it — we share with our animal friends.

When you serve something to your cat or dog in a bowl, does it take care not to spill it all over? It doesn't. That's who we are. Take care of your stomach, and in the process, if you are creating mess all around, then there is no problem.

Now, friends, allow me to come to that part of this question which has not been asked.

When you said you want to talk about cleanliness, what kind of cleanliness do you want to talk about? Just the cleanliness that is visible to the naked eye? — Yeah, "This is very clean. Very clean. Very clean."

Or would you also want to talk about cleanliness that is not visible to the eye? Should it be?

There is dirt and squalor in the Third World — India. Yes, that's there. When you say you are dirtying stuff, is it only about plastic? Is it only about general dirt and filth, or is it also about something called emissions?

Not really. Because places — if you see, it's very interesting — places where you find a lot of material filth are typically not the places that generate a lot of filth by way of emissions. Please see: if you go to a poor village, you'll find a lot of rubbish, garbage, but that place would have a very negligible carbon footprint. Am I right?

And also consider that places that are very clean — spick and span, very clean — the Global North, will have a very high carbon footprint. Now we are confused. What do we call clean? If you have general filth on the road — is that unclean? Or, if you are living in a society, in a place, in a country, in a city that is generating horrible amounts of carbon emissions — is that relatively more unclean?

Which of these two kinds of dirt can be cleaned up more easily? I'm asking. Your question stands upended. What do we call clean, and what do we call unclean? We are creatures of the senses, you know — Gyanendriya. So, just because I cannot see something lying here, I say, "This is clean." Is it clean?

Shubhankar in a team has gone bonkers looking at the size of vehicles here. And he's finding it very impressive — with huge vehicles. Do you look at the overall cost of that? And when one place generates emissions, they do not remain contained within the national boundaries. Do they?

The atmosphere is not a place that honors any kind of national restrictions.

You can have cheap fuel. You can have a zero or minimum tax regime, and that will incentivize people to buy new models every 2 or 3 years. So, the vehicles will not only look bigger, but also cleaner — in the sense that not a single dent on any vehicle, not even on taxis. With a microscope you can look for a scratch, and you won't find it. That too looks like an aspect of cleanliness, doesn't it? But at what cost?

The biggest threat facing this planet today is — climate change.

Take an example: when you talk of clean energy, you do not talk of energy that is not associated with household waste. When you talk of clean energy, you talk of energy that doesn't generate CO₂ and other kinds of greenhouse gases.

If that's the more accurate, subtle, and technologically agreeable definition of cleanliness, then tell me, please: is the Third World unclean, or is the First World unclean? — Tell me, please. So, which are the dirty countries of the world?

No, I'm not standing here as an Indian nationalist, but very realistically, I'm asking you: which are the dirtiest countries in the world, going by the very definition of the word clean in the phrase clean energy? Which are the dirtiest countries in the world?

The entire Global North — right?

What do we do now? What happened to your question?

We wanted to prove that Indians have something wrong in their DNA, and wherever they go, they create filth, and throw garbage, and urinate on the roadside, and spit everywhere, and do this and do that.

Yes, of course, we need not do that. And all of that is indeed dirty.

But when it comes to cleanliness, there are much worse ways of dirtying the planet — dirtying it to the extent of suffocating it, actually absolutely killing it. Not only for ourselves but for the future generations — and future generations not only of Homo sapiens, but of all species on the planet. How dirty is that?

Which means — and it's interesting to note — that cleanliness or the lack of it that comes from just external conditions is, in either case, unclean. If the lack of apparent cleanliness is coming from poverty, then obviously there is a lack of cleanliness, and you can see that. It's visible. It's right there in front of you — on a road, at the town square, it's everywhere. Hospitals — you go and somebody's been spitting on the walls. You can see all that, right?

And then there is the developed world, where no one is spitting on the walls, and in fact, in places like Singapore, you are being actually effectively penalized if you are caught doing anything with public property, including roads. So, there is apparent cleanliness there — you can call it superficial cleanliness. But then, they are dirty in a much deeper sense.

So then, is cleanliness something to be found anywhere? Is it to be found anywhere?

Well, of course, the Indian subcontinent and the entire underdeveloped, developing world — nobody would call it clean, and neither do we need to. Let's accept the facts when they are visible to the naked eye. We can see — even when you go to watch the pristine hillsides — how we have dirtied them. That's visible. So, we are not here to claim that India or the developing world is a clean place. No, not at all. But then, if that is unclean, the developed world is dirtier — even more unclean. So, where will cleanliness come from?

External factors are not favorable, so I created cleanliness of the gross kind — matter lying strewn here and there, right? External factors are not favorable: I'm a poor country, so this and that is lying here, and public services are in an abysmal state. So, visible.

When I'm developed, then I clean this up so that dirt is not visible — but I create filth of a much more vicious nature. Right? Where is cleanliness, then? Or is there no possibility at all?

You see, that's what we began with: if it's coming from outside, it's not going to be clean. It's going to be unclean when it appears unclean, and it's going to be unclean when it appears clean. Irrespective of how it appears, it is going to be dirty.

It appears unclean — it is obviously unclean. It appears clean — it is even more unclean.

Whenever the behavior of a people or a society or a nation would be determined by just external material factors alone, there is no scope of real cleanliness.

Real cleanliness is possible only from the heart of the human being. When you are clean within, then you'll know how to relate to your environment — to your surroundings, the road in front of your house, to all the public places: schools, hospitals, roads, shops, government institutions, buildings, airports, bus stations — you'll know.

But when you are not clean from here (Pointing to oneself) — and what is cleanliness over here? We clean over here to be free of that which is not really you, which is coming from the body or the society.

That inner cleanliness is the goal of all wisdom literature and all spiritual pursuit.

Not really the attainment of something otherworldly. Not really taking care of your next birth or pleasing some metaphysical divine entity sitting in the skies. No, that's not what wisdom or spirituality are for. They are to attain an inner cleanliness.

And when that inner cleanliness is attained, something very beautiful happens. So beautiful, it is not predictable. We do not know how the outsides would look then. But what's certain is that there would be no violence between the human being and his environment — his surroundings. That violence is the fundamental characteristic of being unclean — Unclean. Right?

I am not a factor, not an agent, not a force of cleanliness. If I enter this place and leave it worse when I go back, that's called being an agent of filth. I came here, and the place was worse off when I left — worse off in all ways possible: in my effect not just on the way this stage looks, that the podium looks, but also in my effect on the living beings sitting over here; also my effect on the living beings that are present here but we cannot see with our eyes, because they might be outside the scope of these walls. Getting it?

That's cleanliness — to not be in a violent relationship with your environment.

It's not just about not having visible dirt, or plastic, or stuff of that kind. No. You can have a very modern, state-of-the-art, extremely clean and hygienic slaughterhouse — cleaner than a government hospital in North India. And if we show you pics of that hospital and that slaughterhouse, you would immediately say, "Oh, that one, that one is cleaner."

And we have not yet told you that one is a hospital and the other one is a slaughterhouse. The hospital would not look half as clean as the slaughterhouse.

That's a stupid definition of cleanliness, just to call something clean because it looks clean to the eyes. You have to look at the totality of what is happening there. It might look clean to the eyes, but something extremely violent is happening there — and which is made worse by the fact that it is not visible.

That huge SUV is doing something to the environment that is not easily visible to the naked eye. How clean is that? And there might be a Khatara bus, in Rajasthan, MP, UP somewhere — decrepit, ready to give up the ghost at any point — but it's carrying 80 passengers. The official capacity is 54. The fact is that the per capita emissions are negligible. Even if the engine is 1950s vintage, still, because it is carrying 80 people, the per capita emissions are negligible. Right?

And the huge SUV might actually be a very modern EV — a very, very modern electric vehicle. And you might say, “You know, electric vehicles — no emissions, sir!” The entire charging is happening from fossil fuel power. Right? How do you call it clean? Yes, the EV has technology of 2025 — most modern technology — and that U.P. Roadways has 1955 technology. Tell me, which one is cleaner? Which one is cleaner?

This SUV is carrying one person. One fat, pampered person who thinks he's entitled to do anything that he wants to do with the environment. Worse still, he has convinced himself that he's doing something that's environmentally-friendly. “You know, this is an EV SUV.” Tell me, you immediately would want to say that the man driving the EV is doing something that's cleaner.

And what's happening in the other picture, where you have that old diesel-guzzling bus? That's doing something that's harming the environment. And you could have a pic of the exhaust as well, and dark fumes emerging from the exhaust of the bus would further convince you that something extremely dirty is happening here.

But is the conclusion so obvious? Do we need to be so hasty in concluding? Or is the fact a little different? We must totally get rid of gross notions of cleanliness. Cleanliness in 2025 must have only one meaning: carbon.

"Oh, you look so clean. Four times a day you are taking a shower." No, that's a very dirty thing to do, sir or ma’am. Very dirty thing to do — especially in a place where the annual rainfall is 10 cm. A lot of reliance on desalinated water. And then you want to look so clean — by consuming so much water. No, that's probably the dirtiest thing that you can do.

And I don't know how it happens here, but in India, people would take a hose pipe and wash their vehicles as well. And then the vehicle would start looking clean. No, that's a very dirty practice. A very dirty practice.

So, from the superficial definition of cleanliness, which is about cleanliness visible to the naked eye, we want to come to a less material definition of cleanliness, which relates to carbon emissions — but is still a material definition after all, because carbon dioxide is a material thing. And ultimately, we are saying that real cleanliness is about being clean here — about being clean here.

If we cannot fully grasp or immediately come to a point of cleanliness inside, let's at least shun the notions of outward cleanliness. Not that I'm advocating that outwardly we should be stinking and dirty and unseemly and shabby. No, I'm not advocating that.

I'm just saying that if cleanliness is something so valuable, we better know what it really means. Just because something has shiny skin — be it a human being or an SUV — that doesn't make it clean. Or does it? Just because a place has shiny roads, that doesn't make it clean. Or shiny buildings — that doesn't make it clean.

If the entire world were to be as clean as the United States of America — as clean as (I mean, oxymoron) — we would need close to eight planets like our own to sustain that level of cleanliness. We better remain outwardly a little unclean that's probably acceptable. That's all right.

Questioner: No, I was just wondering — like people who are living a very slow life, even like in Bali or villages in India — they're able to be much more... like, they are cleaner naturally, without trying.

Acharya Prashant: They are living a slow life because they are not yet getting the opportunity to live the fast and dreamy life that probably you do, or most of us do. So it's again circumstantial, environmental, random, coincidental. You're getting it?

The man in that village, who appears like he's living a slow life, is not doing so out of choice. In fact, in his heart, he is continuously aspiring, "Can I also somehow make it to Mumbai or Dubai?" Just that he is not yet getting the chance. Or maybe he's not diligent enough, or smart enough, or skilled enough.

See, as long as your behavior is an output of your environment, there is no way any kind of behavior that you display can be counted as credit towards you. A gun to your temple, and you are made to behave in a proper, honorable, decent, respectable way — should I credit you for that? Should I? The moment the gun is gone, you will revert to only-you-know-what. Getting it?

It's not that the man in the village leading a slow life is virtuous. He's just deprived of opportunity. In fact, he might be as full of greed and ambition and aspiration and violence as anybody else. And given a chance, he might short-change you in the worst way possible.

I recall this one often. So, there was this shopping mall I went to — this was more than 10 years back — and a particular piece of furniture was to be brought. The Bodhsthal was being built then. So, the shopkeeper selling the furniture, he tried to act smart and tried to dupe us. And there was some argument, and we ultimately got him around and got the right price. But it left a bitter taste in the mouth. Somebody you have just discovered was trying to fool you — that doesn't leave you with a happy mind. You are being tricked.

And then we returned to the parking lot, and there the parking guy, he's demanding 20 rupees extra by acting smart and showing us the wrong kind of slip. And then there was somebody with me, and I said, "How is this behavior fundamentally different from the behavior of the shopkeeper inside the mall? Here is this gatekeeper outside the mall, and how is his behavior fundamentally different from the behavior of the shopkeeper inside the mall?"

So it's not really necessary that if somebody is poor or slow, then that points at virtuosity. No way. But we have been, somewhere, taught to think like that — there is a certain virtue in poverty. In India, we often refer to the poor as Daridra Narayana. Daridra means poor, and Narayana means God. Why?

Give him a chance. Just give him a chance and he'll show you what he's capable of. He too is running the same race — just that he's a laggard. It's not that he has willingly opted out of the race. He is in the same race, just that he is not able to run that race properly. That's why he's been left behind. Not that he has opted out.

Now that's real cleanliness — to see that the race is dirty. To not run the usual race. And that does not mean that you opt out of the race and do nothing. That means to walk a different path. That means to discover who you are and hence discover the path you must take. That's cleanliness.

These days, we are talking of debris not only on the land, but also on the ocean floor. Who did that? Third world countries? We are also talking of pollution in space.

Thousands of material pieces are orbiting our planet now. Just like satellites, anything that's there in outer space would orbit the Earth. And they are orbiting, and they can cause any kind of accidents, and those accidents can prove fatal, given that we are having more and more manned space missions now.

So, there's a country that dirties the land, and then there are countries that are keeping the land and the surroundings nice to look at — nice to look at — but are dirtying the atmosphere, the ocean floor, and also outer space. We need to look at the whole thing in a more holistic way. What do we mean by cleanliness?

Cleanliness is not something that comes by being poor. Cleanliness is also not something that comes by being rich. Cleanliness is an entirely different dimension.

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